Saturday, January 14, 2006

Anyone Familiar With Copyright Laws?

I just found out that Norton anthologies reproduced one of my writings--without any notice or payment...

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Where was the writing oringally published? Although very bad form not to tell you, if you've previously published it and signed your copyright away, it's a whole different ballgame...

Michael said...

It was published in a print journal, but the rights were retained by me.

The Continental Op said...

You should double-check whatever you signed when you initially published it. But assuming you did retain all future publication rights, then Norton's use violates your copyright. You should contact them -- or, preferably, have a lawyer contact them on your behalf. If you don't know any lawyers, you should be able to get a referral through the bar association for your city/state.

Michael said...

Thanks Continental Op,

I had you in mind when I wrote the question--I never signed anything away and I'm currently drafting a letter through a lawyer.

I'll update when I learn more (so others are aware of their rights in this regard)

Michael said...

Yeah, unfortunately at the time I wrote it I didn't know what a creative commonslicense was... I get the feeling though with the corporate raiding of creative works that they will soon get a test case.

Oso--do you still want to write the profile of Global Voices for the blogger issue?